by Luanne Rice
“Your parents named you right, Agassiz.”
My mother, who had had me during her graduate years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, had let my father call me Georgiana after his mother under the condition my middle name be Agassiz after Louis Agassiz, the great naturalist. His motto had been “Study nature, not books.” Much to Honora’s dismay I had adopted it and not gone to college.
“Honora will love this idea,” Nick said. “Maybe she and I can be your patrons for a while. You can do a newsletter for the family until you think of something broader.”
“I already have. I’ve written up a grant proposal, and I’m submitting it to the Avery Foundation. I want them to fund the Swift Observatory.”
“You have? Maybe this will take your mind off my work,” Nick said.
“Maybe,” I said, but I doubted it and so did Nick.
Kissing goodnight in pajamas and glasses, we reminded me of those couples in black-and-white home movies: stocky, jerky, the wife in a shirtwaist, the husband in a white shirt and tie, bumping glasses and noses during the kiss, smiling at the camera. Safe. Old-fashioned. A real married couple.
IN MARCH I GOT the money.
I could hardly believe it.
Two thousand dollars paid by the Avery Foundation to the Swift Observatory for the study of human nature, and all they expected in return were quarterly reports on my progress.
THE STUDY OF HUMAN nature deserved more than a few quarterly reports, so I decided to narrow my focus. By that windy May morning I had started to specialize in families. My first reports covered three sisters who had traveled around the world together, a couple whose Christmas tree farm had just been repossessed, a man whose new bride had drowned in a white-water kayaking accident, and a woman accused of helping her terminally ill husband kill himself.
I let myself in my front door, changed into jeans and a sweater, and walked into my workroom. Battered wicker furniture covered with faded summer fabric filled the small space. The surface of every table was covered by shells, sharks’ teeth, vases of dried heather, tendrils of dried seaweed, framed snapshots of us and our families. On my desk, an eighteenth-century French worktable, piles of notes about families covered old notes and sketches of marine life in the bay. Through two windows I saw the bay, the rocky headlands that protected it from the open Sound, Clare’s house farther out the western headland. My mother’s house, hidden from my sight, nestled in a pine grove. Pem’s house, big and dark and empty now, lorded it over the entire scene, its widow’s walk barely showing over the treeline.
Yesterday’s newspapers covered the seat of my chair. I went through them in search of stories about families. Since giving up my maid’s work, I had to take my ideas from the media. The relationship between Senator Hearne and his troubled son interested me, but of course it interested everyone in the state. The dynamics of life in the Children’s Home, where brothers and sisters were allowed to stay together, seemed brave and poignant, but too public. Social workers studied that place every day. Newsprint had turned my hands black by the time I came to the story about Mona Tuchman.
Mona Tuchman had tried to kill her husband’s mistress. She stabbed the woman with a butter knife. Despite the weapon’s bluntness, Mona Tuchman had cracked one of the woman’s ribs and left her bleeding. This had happened in the woman’s own kitchen. The woman remained in the hospital; Mona Tuchman had been in jail but now was free on bail. She had three children. She was my age. The other woman, whose name was Celeste Stone, was a close friend. A source said Mrs. Tuchman had been so shocked to hear about her husband’s affair that she had gone straight to the friend’s apartment, just four blocks away on Central Park West, and confronted her. One thing led to another, and Mona Tuchman grabbed the nearest weapon. “We’re grateful it wasn’t chicken shears,” the source said. Apparently the other woman was an excellent cook, in the process of boning partridge breasts when Mona Tuchman burst in.
The newspaper reporter found this situation hilarious. Why quote “We’re grateful it wasn’t chicken shears” in a story about real tragedy? I sat there holding the newspaper, listening to waves slap the rocks, thinking about desperate Mona Tuchman. One day she thought she was happily married; that night she was an attempted murderer. Her husband had custody of their children. They had been married six years; he was an eye surgeon, she ran a mail-order patchwork quilt business. I imagined her choosing that line of work because it would allow her to stay home with her children. I imagined her at that moment: alone in the West Side apartment she had, until two days ago, shared with her family. Now they were gone. I conjured up this picture of her: huddled in a chair by the window, knees drawn up to her chin, dark hair greasy because she didn’t have the strength to wash it. A woman named Mona Tuchman would have dark hair, or maybe I was just thinking of the Mona Lisa.
I have always believed that anyone, sufficiently provoked, could be capable of murder. Clare and I once laid the groundwork to murder someone. When we were thirteen and fifteen, our mother came close to marrying a man named Carson Bleyle. We hated him. He made himself too comfortable in our house too soon. At the same time, he owned a house in New Haven and wanted us to move there. He couldn’t keep his hands off Honora, and thinking back on it, Clare and I have agreed he was overly touchy with us as well. “Bring me some tissues, lovey,” he was fond of calling through the bathroom door. Whenever he visited he would take a solitary stroll to the end of Pem’s dock. He would smoke a cigar and stroll back. Clare and I decided he would meet his fate on one of those moonlight strolls. We bought marbles at Malloy’s, poured them into a mesh bag that had once held onions, and tied them underwater to a piling. Within days the bright glass turned murky with algae. Tiny sea plants attached themselves to the smooth surfaces. After a week the marbles looked as though they had been in saltwater for a year. Our plan was this: we would retrieve them, spread them over the dock, and lie in wait for Carson. He would slip on the marbles. When he fell into the water, we would bash him with a rock. Upon investigation, the police would discover the marbles, but Clare would swear she had lost them when she was nine. Although Honora broke up with him before we came close to acting, planning Carson’s demise gave us much pleasure.
Mona Tuchman had acted, not planned. Hers was a crime of passion, brought off in mere seconds. Sources said they doubted premeditation. In the heat of the moment, she had grabbed a butter knife and driven it into her friend’s ribs. How much better it would have been for Mona in the long run if she had simply fantasized killing the other woman. Perhaps nothing could stop the romance, but at least she wouldn’t have to go through life known as the woman who tried to kill her husband’s lover. And a laughingstock as well for having used a butter knife. Why did I care nothing for Celeste Stone, the other woman? Alone in my room I could have cried for Mona Tuchman, but for the woman who lay injured in her hospital bed I thought only, “Homewrecker.”
I reached for the Manhattan white pages. There were listings for Richard Tuchman MD and Tuchman Country Quilts at the West Seventy-fourth Street address. From past experience I knew that today was the time to call her. In a week she would figure out how to ditch the interviewers: change her phone number, move out of town, refuse to comment. But for now she would answer obediently, as if cooperation would improve her luck. I dialed the business number.
“Tuchman Country Quilts,” the voice said.
“May I speak with Mona Tuchman, please?” I asked in my most respectful tone.
“This is she.”
“Mrs. Tuchman, this is Georgiana Swift calling from the Swift Observatory—”
Long pause. “This is my business line. Are you calling to order a quilt?”
“No, I’d like to interview you.”
“I know, I can tell from the tone of your voice. Reverential, you know? The way you talk to someone at their mother’s funeral. I’ll bet you write for a women’s magazine, you’re after the sisterhood angle. You’ve got the sensitive approach.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t write for a magazine. I’m doing a study.”
“Well, get off my fucking business line. I’m taking orders today.” Her voice cracked into a sob, and the line went dead.
I sat very still, holding the receiver and shaking all over. What kind of a creep was I? I felt like the paparazzi who followed the Royals down the slopes at Klosters, who hounded the families of murder victims. Who was I to envision Mona Tuchman curled into a pitiful ball, hiding from the world? She was trying to keep her life together. She was conducting business. She was an ordinary woman. She had just tried to kill someone.
Driven to violence for love of husband
Loves so intensely she’d kill for it?
What about her kids if she goes to jail?
How does her husband feel about her now? her kids?
Family at all costs
Breakup unthinkable
Brave lady, but crazy
I sat there writing notes about Mona Tuchman, listening to the storm gathering force. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, writing about her. I put myself in her place: if Nick had an affair, wouldn’t I want to attack his mistress? That stopped me for a moment because of course the answer was no, I would want to attack him.
Then I remembered that Celeste Stone had been a close friend of Mona’s. They had met at their daughters’ nursery school. How sordid that made it seem, the image of adultery combined with images of pitch pipes, colored construction paper, poster paints, rocking horses. After our father had died, Honora had told me and Clare that he had been unfaithful with the mother of one of our friends. Then she had refused to tell us which friend. Also she had refused to tell us how she had felt about it, except to give us the message that men, even good men, should be watched carefully and not quite trusted. The fact that she had stayed married to him, had not tried to stab anyone with a butter knife, said something. Why did I think that interviewing Mona Tuchman could tell me what?
I COULD HARDLY REMEMBER my father, but I know I loved him. When he was alive we lived in Woods Hole. Timothy Swift was a top geologist-geophysicist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Honora was a weather girl with a red-and-blue uniform and a stage name—Wendy Swift. She also did a series called Weather Woman, now a camp classic, in which she played a good character able to affect events by controlling the weather. Her beauty and eccentricities made her a natural for the talk-show circuit. Every time she appeared on television, my father, Clare, and I would watch. We witnessed her forecast hurricanes and clearing trends, we saw her banish the Princess of Heat Waves to Lapland, we watched her on Live at Five, Midday Talk, and, at the height of her fame, on The Dick Cavett Show. “That’s my wife,” my father would say out loud in a puzzled voice, but we knew he was proud. He took care of us on all her publicity trips. When she was gone he let us stay up late; sometimes he let me stay in his office instead of going to school.
My father’s office was just across Eel Pond from my school, and I remember waving to each other every morning at eleven. The few times he forgot, I felt terrible. My teacher would tell me he forgot because he was a “dedicated scientist.” In Woods Hole the greatest compliment anyone could bestow was “dedicated scientist.” They all accepted that my father, with his books and yellow pencils, deserved the appellation, but most felt that Honora, with her glamorous job and stage name, did not. Clare and I assumed they were jealous that a dedicated scientist like our mother could make so much more money than they could, get picked up in a black sedan, and be recognized at the Cape Cod Mall in Hyannis. Even now, as adults, we couldn’t believe that our father could have found any woman in Woods Hole more attractive than she. But of course that’s not what adultery is about. Need is what adultery is about. It has taken me all this time to find out.
My father was tall and solid. He rowed around Eel Pond every morning at dawn to keep from getting fat. Sometimes he would take me and Clare in the boat. I remember his oars splashing the still surface, making too much noise. We felt thrilled with embarrassment that he might be waking the town. He had a wonderful black moustache that turned up at the ends, so he always looked like he was smiling. Honora called him “Timmy.” Pem called him “Tim” or “Tim dear,” but we all knew she resented him for keeping us in Woods Hole instead of at Bennison Point in Black Hall.
I must have sensed some trouble between our parents, because I was always praying they wouldn’t get divorced. I prayed and found comfort in Catholic rituals and symbols, the secrets and mysteries, the story of Mary, the concept of an all-loving God who kept families together, the beautiful tales of Lourdes and Fatima. The church in Woods Hole had a Mary Garden, a peaceful place planted with flowers whose names were associated with Mary. The Madonna Lily; Saint Mary’s Tree (rosemary); Lady Never Fade (wild strawberry); the Dear Mother’s Love (wild thyme); and Lady’s Cushion (thrift pink). I felt dizzy in that garden. I’d walk carefully around the grass walk wishing for Mary to appear to me the way she had to the children at Fatima, praying for everything to be “all right.” I never defined “all right,” but I knew it had something to do with my parents staying happy together. Or at least together.
Then my father took the job with Ordaco. Leaving research for a high-paying job with an oil company was perceived in Woods Hole as selling out. Honora told us one day, “Your friends might tell you that Daddy has ‘sold out,’ but that is because their parents are envious of him. The way they are of me. So hold your heads high.” He spent a lot of time in Texas and Scotland. For some reason his absence was a relief to me. It seemed entirely job-related, nothing like the emotional separation I had feared. Development had begun in the North Sea; his involvement caused great excitement for Honora, Clare, and me. We couldn’t wait for his letters, his phone calls. Oil gushed at a tremendous rate. He studied new sites, new sediment samples, and determined whether the company should dig. Honora told us he was “in charge.”
Off the coast of Scotland he lived on an oil rig equipped with movie theaters, restaurants, and a health spa. He wrote that the men could order anything they wanted, including North American lobster, and the chef would prepare it. He wrote that he was getting a little fat without Eel Pond to row around. Even though Clare and I were young, we could see that Honora loved him more after he started his glamorous job. He would return from Texas with cowboy hats and Indian jewelry, from Scotland with tweed and shortbread. Honora paid more attention to him than she had when he was doing research, but I still sensed trouble. It came from him. He never seemed peaceful in our house. His letters were wonderful, full of love, but at home his eyes betrayed that he wished he were elsewhere.
Then a North Sea gale, Force 10, had swept away the oil rig and all the men on board. For years I had nightmares of tidal waves, great whirlpools sucking the men underwater, murky black seas that reflected no light from the sun or stars. I kept picturing my father treading water, waiting to be rescued, wind screaming in his ears. Sometimes I thought that if he had wanted more than anything to come home to us, he would have been saved. He drowned. Lying awake on certain nights, I would think of his eyes, darting to the window, the door, the chimney. On those visits home, only his moustache smiled. I would think of him leaving a hole in our family, and I would drown him all over again. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t forget Mona Tuchman. She couldn’t bear her husband leaving her, leaving a hole in her family. She would rather kill someone than let that happen.
2
THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY WAS MY TURN TO have the family dinner. That night I was happy. I remember it so well. Everyone was gathered together under my roof. Nick walked around passing nuts. Honora and Pem sat at opposite ends of the sofa with Eugene and Casey between them. The boys grew restless with embarrassment watching their parents lip-synch “Strangers in the Night.” Nick came to sit beside me on the floor. One big pillow of faded cotton paisley leaned against the french doors and we rested our heads on it. Sitting outside the circle of direct light felt intimate, and I pressed closer to him.
“
We all ought to be home where we belong,” Pem said crossly. Naturally she meant we should all be at her house.
“The family’s together, Mother,” Honora said. “Georgie’s cooked a lovely dinner. Can’t you smell the lamb?”
“I’m glad I got off easy today,” Donald said. “I almost had to fly to Zurich.”
“You boys are ridiculously devoted,” Honora said. “I know that’s what it takes to make it on Wall Street, but still. Am I being a boring mother-in-law?”
“Yes,” Donald, Clare, Nick, and I said at once.
“It’s cold in here,” Pem said.
Nick walked over to her, shook out the black shawl I kept folded on the bannister, and laid it across her shoulders. She nodded but started to rise. Anticipating her mission, Nick pushed her down. “Sit down, Pem,” he said. “I’ll get you another martini.”
“Another? It’s my first,” she said, indignant.
“It’s your second,” Eugene said. It didn’t matter, since Pem’s martinis were now one tablespoon of gin floating in a glass of tonic water.
“I’ll get it,” Nick said. Pem started a little boxing match, but Nick turned it into a waltz. She rested her head on his shoulder, her eyes rolling as though she wanted us to see she thought it was a big joke, but everyone knew she was enjoying the dance.
“Make it a good one,” she said as Nick headed to the kitchen for her drink.
“Have you read about Mona Tuchman?” I asked.
“The woman who tried to kill her husband?” Honora asked.
“No, she tried to kill his mistress,” Clare said, “though I question how seriously she wanted to. She used a butter knife.”
